


☒☒☐ (bury me thrice over)

by lieyuu



Series: lieyuu’s favorites [4]
Category: Dream SMP (Video Blogging RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spirits, Gen, Sentient Cities, oh god i have no idea how to tag this fic, post november 16th, pre jan 6, yall i posted this like an hour before today's streams started my timing was perfect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:02:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28595184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lieyuu/pseuds/lieyuu
Summary: She is aware, of course, of how this game works. Three strikes and you’re out. There’s been a dozen deaths amidst her sprawling hills, deaths she holds close to her heart with bloodied hands. Her boys - with sword and axe and bow - they run her waters red. Bloody like their gravestones. Human, god, or spirit, everyone will have their triple resting spots in the end.After Wilbur's death, the spirit of his country reflects on her own lives.
Relationships: L'Manberg & Greater Dream SMP, vaguely mentioned wilbur + tommy
Series: lieyuu’s favorites [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2083761
Comments: 38
Kudos: 60





	☒☒☐ (bury me thrice over)

**Author's Note:**

> something something hehe hoohoo sentient cities. i was looking at l'manberg's flag and yk how there are three Xs. yeah i got it into my head "what if... l'manberg ALSO had three canon lives...." and i produced this. dream pay me royalties this a genius idea /j
> 
> looking at my tags is just. how do i go about tagging this. 
> 
> this is very obviously SMP Fic so idk if i really care about it getting back to the content creators but like, yknow. don't harass them and shit. don't go through efforts to make them see this, etc etc. respect their boundaries.

She is aware, of course, of how this game works. Three strikes and you’re out. There’s been a dozen deaths amidst her sprawling hills, deaths she holds close to her heart with bloodied hands. Her boys - with sword and axe and bow - they run her waters red. Bloody like their gravestones. Human, god, or spirit, everyone will have their triple resting spots in the end. 

She crawls out of the pits within her walls to the tune of gleeful shouting from a man she knows; she drags her aching body out of the craters left by blackened bones and far too many stacks of TNT. She lies in the ruins of her nation, stares at the sky, and knows she won’t do it again. Next time, she’s gone for good.

They rebuild, like they always do. Her boys, minus one, stacking up wood and hanging up lanterns and creating beauty from destruction. She sits in the corner of her dear Niki’s bakery, drinks a cup of tea and has a slice of cake. She doesn’t watch them. Without even knowing it, they will come to her, when the time is right.

“Can I get your plate, ma’am?” Niki asks, soft and quiet. Her eyes flick up and out the window, the purse of her lips ever so gentle.

“Oh, yes,” the girl-spirit responds, pushing it back across the other end of the table. “Thank you.”

“Thank  _ you, _ ” Niki says, faint, like she’s a video tape wearing itself thin. She shakes her head, looks down and smiles. “I like your dress.”

“I know,” girl-spirit says, and she smiles and gets up and walks away.

L’Manberg is a girl born from two brothers with dreams too big for their hands to hold. She has hair soft and curly like Wilbur’s, but in Tommy’s brilliant blonde, which has darkened and warmed over time as Fundy grew up. She wears Niki’s favorite sundress or overalls or sweater, keeps her feet bare like Tubbo in the gardens. 

Her eyes used to be pure white. They’ve changed over the years.

There are other bits of her that change: the number of freckles on her left arm, the style of her hair. Length of her eyelashes, temperature of her hands. She knows her makers, though. Those parts don’t change. 

She sits at the edge of New L’Manberg the land, folds her skirt around her legs neatly. Holds out a hand, laughs at the bee that lands on it, and waits. 

Her sister comes with slow, heavy steps, with skin that’s scarred and war-torn. She wears armor, these days - netherite, cold and hard. She jokes that she can’t take it off because she’s not sure she’s wearing anything underneath. 

“Hope it doesn’t chafe,” girl-spirit always says, and waits for the day her sister can take the armor off and wear sundresses and be free. Imagines a day she can put on armor and make defenses and be free. 

When her sister arrives, at long last, towering and armor-clad and arms held out, girl-spirit climbs into the embrace easily, tucks her head against her sister’s shoulder like she had as a child, when she was nothing more than a growth on her sister’s back, giggling into her long blonde hair. “What’s your name?” she’d asked the day she first learned to speak. 

Her sister had paused from where she was magicking trees out of the earth and tilted her head. “I don’t have one,” she said, then shook her head. “I’m Dream’s. That’s all.”

“I’ll call you Dreams, then,” girl-growth-not-yet-spirit responded. “Plural. A bunch of little dreams, all wrapped up in one.”

“That’s all anyone really is,” Dreams told her. “What should I call you, then?”

She had tilted her head, tapped her chin. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think I have a name yet.”

Two days later, a brother called her L’Manberg, and she was named.

Now, Dreams carries her through open fields, towards the place they both like best. A boy’s begun building there, recently. A pond with a fish and a small bridge and a little house decorated in red and white. It’s cute. 

“Do you think this’ll have a spirit?” L’Manberg asks, dipping her feet in the pond and laughing at the way the fish darts away. “It’s small, but it’s loved. Almost maybe enough.”

“I think it already does,” Dreams says, and she points towards a brown cat sitting in the middle of the bridge. The cat blinks at them and tilts its head. “The beginnings of one, at least. She has prettier beginnings than you.”

“I started because of a drug truck,” girl-spirit says, grumbly about it. “It’s not hard to start prettier than me.” 

“You started because of brothers with dreams,” her sister says. She sits down next to her, careful to keep her neck away from the tree branches, and stares into the water. “That’s plenty. Most of us have nice starts, anyways. I just think the cat is cute.”

“Brothers with dreams, huh,” L’Manberg says. She side-eyes her sister. “Maybe I should’ve been Dreams. You can be Friendship, or Protectiveness, or something.” 

“You named me,” Dreams protests. “You can’t take it away now.”

They’re quiet for a few minutes. The cat slinks closer and curls up between them, purring softly when L’Manberg runs a hand down its back. “Have you spoken to Wilbur?” Dreams asks, after a long moment filled with nothing but the purring.

It’s not - policy, or whatever, to speak to your people beyond what’s necessary for politeness. It’s not exactly policy to turn into ghosts, either. Three strikes. Wilbur won himself a fourth through sheer force of will.

_ That’s my boy,  _ L’Manberg thinks, fond, and nods. “A few days ago,” she says. “He’s sweet. He’s like he was before. I’ve missed him. Have you ever met anyone like him?”

Dreams shrugs, and the movement looks exhausting. “Not exactly like him, but you and I both know Dream isn’t normal.”

“Did he win himself a fourth go, too?”

Dreams gives her a weird look. “Fourth go?”

It’s L’Manberg’s time to shrug and feel exhausted. She kicks at the water and only feels a little bad when the fish turns tail and swims as fast as it can to the other end of the pond. “Three strikes and you’re out,” she says. “That’s how this world works.”

She’s quiet. Then, “I’m on my third.”

“It doesn’t apply to you,” Dreams says, but her voice is just unsure enough for L’Manberg to know. Her sister is immortal; she lives and dies with her maker, who _can’t,_ not in this world _._ She doesn’t understand human life. She probably never will. Her lifeblood is the fabric of the universe.

“It does,” L’Manberg says, determined. “I’m a goner next time there’s a war.”

The world is silent. The boy who built this place comes home, doesn’t even look twice at them sitting in his front yard. He whistles, and the cat bounds to his side, and they both head into the house. When the lights turn on inside, she says, “You should - tell them. About me. After I’m gone. The cat, and whoever Drywaters grows up to be, and the Badlands. Tell Dream, too. I know you talk to him. Tell him about me. I don’t want to be forgotten.”

“You have Tommy,” Dreams says. “And Tubbo, and Niki, and Fundy. You have dozens in your nation who would remember you.”

“They would remember me as they wanted to remember me,” she insists. “As - their home, or their enemy, or just a place to put their heads down at night. I’ve changed too much for them to know me. They’ve changed too much for me to know them. It’s how we are. I love my Niki and I love my boys, but we stopped understanding each other a long time ago.”

She turns to her sister and tugs off the cardigan she’d found wrapped around her shoulders this morning. She taps at the burn scars on her arm, gestures towards potion-stained fingertips. There’s the parts of her that feel frail and sickly some times, the parts she inherited from Wilbur in what were meant to be his last days. “You know me as I am,” L’Manberg says. Fiercely, “And Dream. He’ll know me as I am. He needs to, or some other poor city-spirit is going to come along, and he’s going to let them get ripped apart too.” 

Dreams nods. “I’m sorry,” she says, tearing her eyes off the sunset to look at her sister. “I’m sorry it had to be like this. Humans, am I right?”

“Humans,” L’Manberg agrees, laughing a little. “Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.”

In the morning, the boy will leave again. Tommy and Ranboo will come with their fire and their temper, and Dreams will hold the cat close as it yowls. Her maker will wall up New L’Manberg the land and wall up L’Manberg the spirit. In a few days, he takes Tommy away, and a new spirit is born far from the others of its kind. 

It will all crash and burn soon, very soon. L’Manberg feels Tommy’s absence in her like a claw, feels it chafe like she imagines her sister’s armor does. It burns her inside, and she thinks that maybe this will be what kills her, in the end. Stretching herself too far, reaching for the boy who gave her her first colors. 

Things go wrong so very quickly. Three strikes, and she’s coming up to bat again soon. At least someone will remember her.

**Author's Note:**

> comments + kudos much appreciated <33 stay safe everyone


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